Thicker Than Water
by Phosphorescent
Summary: She didn't know why she had kept her mother's mirror. Not after it had brought her so much pain. -Snow White-


_A/N: In older versions of the Snow White tale, the Wicked Queen is Snow White's birth mother rather than her step-mother. This short story (beginning a bit after where the Grimms' _Little Snow-White_ left off) explores that initial premise. For this story, I have given Snow White the name 'Blanche'._

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><p>She didn't know why she had kept it. After it had brought her so much pain. Her husband certainly didn't.<p>

"Get rid of it," he pleaded with her. "It's evil."

Of course, she'd scoffed at that. "My mother was evil," she'd corrected. "It's just a mirror."

Only it wasn't just a mirror, of course.

Growing up, she'd always been fascinated by the mirror; half-drawn to it, half-repulsed, but never able to look away. It was the finest thing in the castle, certainly, with its heavy gold frame and unwarped glass that actually showed things as they were. And although the queer little goblin faces peering out of the frame, with their sharp teeth and sharper eyes, frightened her, that wasn't enough to keep her away.

Her mother had been a beautiful woman if rather mercurial, who was affectionate by fits and turns. After ignoring her for weeks, she'd suddenly lavish affection and attention on Blanche. She'd sit her down in front of the mirror and brush her hair, murmuring how thick and beautiful it was. Then she'd allow Blanche to watch her apply the creams and powders in the little pots sitting on her vanity. She'd sit still, captive to her mother's tales of her girlhood and feverishly high spirits.

But they'd crash just as quickly as they rose. Her mother would be brushing her hair and then she'd start yanking on it – purposefully – and speak in a strange, fierce voice.

"Men want us to be beautiful, Blanche," she would tell her. "Without our looks, we are nothing, have nothing. You must always be the fairest in your household."

And then she'd show her some odd trick meant to keep her skin smooth, all the while promising to teach her one day to use the mirror, whatever that was supposed to mean. It was a mirror. Blanche was no simpleton. All one had to do was look in it, surely.

She shuddered slightly at the memory. As she had grown older, things had only become worse. Her mother had gone from being a protector to someone whom she needed protection _from_. Her mother's slaps and pinches were no longer meant to add color to her cheeks, her deprivation of food no longer meant just to keep her slim. And her father wouldn't listen to her.

Then he had died. She still suspected her mother had something to do with that. She'd overheard strange whispers coming from her mother's room in the middle of the night for months before his death.

"Turn me out of my own house, would he?" the queen would mutter furiously when she thought Blanche wasn't around.

Of course, then she'd tried to kill her so as to eat her heart.

But everyone knew that story. And it had ended well, hadn't it? Her mother dead at last, herself married to the prince who had rescued her?

She still had nightmares of her mother's screams as the shoes scorched her feet to the bone.

She didn't know why she had kept the mirror. Perhaps to remind herself of whence she'd come? Because she was still strangely drawn to it, even as it made her feel unclean?

"It's just a mirror," she repeated firmly. "And an uncommonly nice one, too. It would be wasteful to get rid of it."

And her husband sighed, acquiescing to her stance. But he refused to have it hung in plain sight.

So, even to this day, she would go down to the small dungeon chamber where it was kept, and stare at it. The candlelight glinted off of the gold, making the glass appear almost green in color. And the goblin's faces seemed to smirk at her knowingly.

She shivered and hurried back up the stairs to the light, to the living, doing her best to ignore the small voice in her head which said, _You'll be back._

_-–- -–- -–- -–- -–-_

It was a mere five years later that her husband strayed. When she caught him with the serving girl, something had snapped within her. The serving girl fled at the moment of discovery, frightened, if not shamed.

"How dare you," she exhaled lowly, blinking back tears and maintaining a haughty stance.

"You have no right to judge me," he returned. "I can do as I please."

"I'm your wife!" she snapped.

"You won't be for much longer if you keep this up," he informed her.

And when she refused to give him carte blanche, he cast her off into the world, penniless save the clothes on her back and the goblin mirror.

"Much good may you do each other," he'd said. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, after all. You're just as proud as they say _she_ was. I should have known better than to marry you."

Sticking her chin high in the air, she'd stalked off.

On her journey to a neighboring kingdom, she'd often had to stop to give her weary arms and legs a rest. It had been years since she'd done heavy labor, and the mirror wasn't light. So she'd sit on a hillock or in a hollow, and nurse her bitterness against her ex-husband, all the while gazing absent-mindedly at the mirror. The leering goblin faces alternately appeared to be grimacing and grinning gruesomely. And although the mirror still frightened her, she felt a strange sort of affinity for it, a companionship with it.

-–- -–- -–- -–- -–-

A few years later yet, after establishing herself in the new kingdom, she managed to get the king there to marry her.

And oh, how she loved him. Desperately, fiercely.

So it came as little surprise when she discovered that she was with child. She would sit at the window, sewing, and pray for an heir.

When she gave birth, it became clear that her prayers had not been answered. The babe was a girl. Still, Blanche loved her, and named her Abigail, which means 'Father's joy'. And she swore to herself that she would protect this daughter of hers from the cruel world, would never let her be treated as she herself had been.

And so the years passed, and with each day, Abigail became more beautiful than ever.

Blanche became pregnant more than once during this time, but none of those children survived. Then one day she discovered that her husband's attention was wandering. He hadn't betrayed her, not yet, but she knew that if she did not act swiftly, history might repeat itself.

So she went into the forest and gathered the herbs that her mother had shown her, and ground them into pastes and powders. Then she would sit at her vanity and brush her hair and do her face for hours, all the while checking in the mirror to be certain that she appeared as youthful as possible.

And the mirror seemed to smirk at her and say, _I knew you'd be back one day_.

She shuddered a little bit, but gritted her teeth and beautified herself. Ill though she had been, her mother had been right about men.

However, it was not longer before she noticed that her daughter was growing handsomer than she herself, and she recalled her mother's words: "_You must always be the fairest in your household, Blanche."_

And she knew not what to do.

So her mirror became her confidant.

"Mirror, mirror, on a stand," she would murmur. "Abigail is the fairest in the land. The sooner she's safely married and out of this house, the better. And the king's eye has been wandering again…"

The mirror never responded outright, but its glass seemed to wink at her slyly.

"Oh, but what do you care? You're just a stupid mirror!" Her voice rose at this last bit, and she flung a slipper at it angrily.

-–- -–- -–- -–- -–-

Then one day she saw her husband gazing at their daughter with lust in his eyes. Her daughter gazed back at him every bit as brazenly.

She knew what she must do.

"We haven't had time alone in simply ages," she informed Abigail. Clapping her hands together, as though she had just had the idea, she said brightly, "Let's go on a picnic together."

And when they had gone deep into the woods, Blanche took the carving knife with its wicked blade from the basket and plunged it straight into her daughter's heart. She carved it out from the dead girl's body, and placed it back in the basket with satisfaction.

That night, she had the cook put it in a stew, and she served it to her husband.

"Where's Abby?" he asked.

"Oh, she said she was tired," Blanche replied. "She's retired to her room for the night. Some more stew?"

He nodded his head, and said, "It's delicious. New recipe, eh? This sauce seems to keep the meat extra tender."

And Blanche smiled.

When Abigail's body was found strewn and bloodied across her bed the next morning, there was an uproar. The window shutter was open, and it was clear to all that some wild beast had made off with her heart and entrails.

And at night, Blanche sat in front of the mirror and smiled while brushing her hair.

She was once again the fairest.

-–- -–- -–- -–- -–-

But a year to the day that she killed her daughter, she began to hear Abigail's voice. High and haunting, it sang:

"_My mother bore me, _

_My mother killed me, _

_My mother put me in a stew and my father ate me." _

At first she tried to ignore it, but it only grew louder.

"What's that noise?" her husband asked one evening.

"What noise?" Blanche said.

The humming of her daughter grew in volume.

"Oh, that," she said, laughing nervously, "it's but the wind in the trees, my dear. Pay it no mind."

That night in bed, Blanche swore that she could feel her daughter's cold fingers about her neck and shivered.

"_My mother bore me, _

_My mother killed me, _

_My mother put me in a stew and my father ate me." _

"There's that sound again," her husband said.

"No doubt it's one of the servants," Blanche replied, "singing a lullaby to her children."

The singing continued thus for several days, increasing in volume, until one night:

"Why, that sounds like our Abby!"

"What nonsense!"

"No, truly. What is it that she's saying? I can't quite make it out."

"Go to sleep, darling. We have a busy day tomorrow."

"_My mother bore me, _

_My mother killed me, _

_My mother put me in a stew and my father ATE ME!" _

"Lies!" Blanche gasped.

"The spirits of the departed can not lie," her husband said, horrified. "Blanche… what have you done?"

Blanche laughed, part in hysteria, part in bitterness. "I _saw_ you looking at her."

"The only thing you saw was a father's natural love for his child!"

"Nay, 'twas far more than that. You wished to fornicate with her. It was the only way to protect all of us, don't you see?"

"I see that you are either mad or wicked; possibly both."

And he had her thrown into the dungeons.

Encountering her pots and lotions, the king realized that his wife must have been a witch all this time, for how else could someone so evil have ensnared him so fully? And that mirror… surely there was something unnatural about it.

The next day, the charges against her read aloud, she was summarily burned at the stake.

The smell of her charred flesh would have made Blanche vomit in remembrance, were the pain not so great. And as the flames licked at her feet – oh _God_, the pain – and climbed higher, Blanche swore that she could see the mirror's goblin faces smirking in the smoke.


End file.
